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It would be nice to know which focus mode people in this sub are using the most. Central point, all the points, continuous, full auto?

I have currently set my Nikon to AF-C and 3D-tracking with back button focus by default. This way I can quickly focus and recompose if I want, but when I hold down the back button while doing so, the camera will move the original focus point to maintain accurate focus, and I'm also less likely to make focus errors with moving subjects. But I'd like to learn of other techniques from more experienced photographers.

Same, but I always use continuous mode. There doesn't seem to be ny reason to switch out of it. If I am shooting a still subject, I just touch the af button once. If I am tracking, I hold it down. I can barely understand the point of single shot mode. It seems like it offers no advantages and several disadvantages. e.g. Can't use continuous mode at all times, seems to be less accurate than continous mode, no control over how long the af motor is engaged.

Maybe it is a bit faster if you use "wait until focus is acheived to shoot" and don't use back button focusing, but since you do use back button focusing, why do you use a single shot mode? What advantage does it give you?

I 100% agree with you in general, but for me specifically I shoot most of my stuff on a 5D MKII and I've determined that the AF is noticeably less accurate in continuous mode vs. single. Since I'm rarely shooting action, I just opt to stay in the mode that helps me nail focus more reliably. This may be user error or simply a quirk of my camera, but it's there.

Were I shooting on a camera where I could rely on continuous AF to keep things locked, I would leave it in that mode. There is a battery hit to be taken into account, but it's never seemed big enough to make or break my decision to use continuous AF.

In other words, there is no reason I can think of to switch out of continuous AF if your camera is as good at locking focus with it on. Mine just happens not to be. :)

Bzzzt. This will give you parallax errors with closeups, even portraits.
Picture it: if you're rotating the camera around to recompose, the auto-focussed point is tracing an arc in space that will intersect your subject in unintended places.

Me, I use live-view at waist-level and if focussing is critical, e.g. for closeup work, I compose first then zoom in on the subject in question wherever it is in the frame. And I'll probably switch auto-focus off altogether once it starts getting precise.

Just because it's a form of compromise that some people are prepared to accept doesn't mean it's for everyone, though. (All cameras are compromises in some way - that's the (limited) fun of gear-watching.) Says a lot about the subject-matter you're envisioning and the importance you place on the nature of bokeh.

APS-C, 50mm, subject 3ft away: at f/16 your DoF is 0.01in either side. That's quite narrow for the format, borderline diffraction to some people, and may cause other problems with exposure times and ISOs.

I see your decades and raise you over a century of various large-format equipment inspected by sticking the loupe wherever you want on the ground-glass.

It's not even slightly a generalization: parallax is a consideration in any photo taken with the centre-AF+recompose technique - it's just that it's subsumed within the DoF with wider-angle focal lengths and greater camera-to-subject distances.

Let's consider a portrait - hardly a narrow use-case. Run some numbers: assuming typical APS-C, 85mm focal length, with a subject 5ft away, at f/8 you've got about 1.8in DoF beyond the focal plane. So if the eyes are sharp, the far side of their ears won't be.
By f/22, that's still only as far as 5.6 inches (and you're worrying about diffraction).
My trigonometry is rather rusty, but I calculate that if you swing through 10 degrees to recompose, the point on the arc will be ~0.9in away from where you originally focussed. That's a fair proportion of the DoF being considered, meaning you would be wiser to refocus with the new composition.

Bearing in mind that I was responding to the assertion "I can't think of any situation in which it's necessary to use another off center AF point", thanks for helping prove my point.

Center point. Focus on a half press and then don't move unless I refocus.

It's the only way I autofocus for the last decade or so. For a few years I was always trying different things. I don't think it matters so much your personal style as learning one or two ways that work for you depending on the situations you shoot in and then sticking to them. You just need to be able accurately predict what the camera is going to do.

That's why I don't like shutter half press focus: you need to keep your shutter butten carefully half pressed or else your camera will refocus. Having focus on the back button just makes much more sense to me: when I want the camera to focus, I press the button. When I don't, I don't. Releasing the shutter is a separate action.

That's not how I have my cameras set up. I'd have to check on exactly what the names are for my Fuji and Canon cameras. I think it's something like 'single shot', but it's half press focuses once, and then it does not refocus unless I half press again. I don't have to keep it half pressed.

Yeah that is single shot focus. The problem with that IMO is that you lose the continuous focus functionality which is useful for objects that move slightly. With back button focus you get the best of both worlds, without ever having to switch into another mode: you get continuous/servo focus as long as you hold the back button depressed, and single shot focus at a single press. Plus you disconnect the focus function from the shutter button so you have the freedom to relax your shutter finger and you never have to carefully hold down a half-press.

What I've found is that my camera (5D MKII, T3i, and Fuji X10) doesn't keep up with most moving objects I want to shoot. (Football, hockey, cars, motorcycles) I do far better setting a focus point and anticipating the action to cross into it. I've literally never held down a half press--I don't even think that works on 5DMKII? I dunno.

Again, I actually don't think it's that important which you choose as long as you yourself know how to anticipate what your camera is going to do. It's nice to have options, just explaining how I do it.

I have currently set my Nikon to AF-C and 3D-tracking with back button focus by default. This way I can quickly focus and recompose if I want, but when I hold down the back button while doing so, the camera will move the original focus point to maintain accurate focus,

does that actually work reliably? i've turned my cameras onto 3d tracking about once, watched them wig out, and decided it was an unpredictable mode.

yup, that link was already purple. but i'm gonna make a few different recommendations and tell you why:

focus tracking lock-on to long. i've honestly had significantly more issues with things coming between me and my subject than with tracking. tracking is easy for the camera. i like to be half on the trigger ready for the shot, even if someone's gonna run between me and the guy with the ball/puck/whatever. obviously, this may different if you're using back-button AF, but

i don't recommend back-button AF for most sports. in general, i'm always tracking the subject, and i never want to take a picture where the camera hasn't employed its AF, so it's just one more button to keep track of. and that means fewer keepers. but for a sport like baseball, i'm going to frame up, focus on something like the batter or the first baseman, and wait for the action to come into the frame. in that case, i don't want the AF system to do anything at all; the hesitation means missed shots. so basically, tracking, front button, waiting back button.

AF point selection to 11 (or similar small number) if you're using an FX camera. i have it set to 51 on my D300s and 11 on my D700. the points are too relatively close together on FX that it's just a waste of time flipping through them. and the big one:

AF-C priority to FOCUS. i only shoot my D300s in daylight, and it has no issues properly acquiring focus and confirming focus while maintaining nearly all of its stated FPS. for my D700, in dimmer light and with erratic movement, focus priority drastically increases the number of keeper. even if it was slightly slower, 7 shots in a second that are in focus beats 3 in focus and 5 out of focus. i have tested it both ways, at least on my D700, and the hit rate goes up.

now, i haven't made a bank for sports. many of these are just my default settings. i see no need to change them for other uses. i just flip the camera into AF-C, turn on CH mode, both of which are physical controls on the camera, and i'm good to go.

it's definitely a preference thing. people i talk to tend to be fairly divided about it. and as i said, i love it for baseball. just not sports when i'm tracking, because it's one more thing to distract me and one more thing to potentially mess up.

You have to experiment. I've got a D700, and have experience using D3/D3s/D800. The D700 is probably the least competent camera in continuous AF of the cameras I've mentioned and yet I get a high keeper rate. It is in the pairing of AF mode plus AF point setup that you'll find greater success depending on the situation. Sometimes 51 point with 3D is great, and at other times 21 point or even 11 is better. It can often be about feeding your camera less info in order to get it to make better choices.

It works perfectly fine for still subjects while focusing and recomposing on my D7000. With fast moving subjects, I'd have to agree that 3D tracking can be a hit-and-miss. I've noticed that the tracking of moving subjects is even worse with third-party (Sigma) lenses. Maybe it's because my camera has no knowledge of the the actual speed of third-party focus motors?

For portraits, I've learned to manually adjust my focus point so that I minimize recomposing the shot. So I choose the closest focus point that I can for what I want to focus on (the eye, for example) then recompose. I like to shoot wide open so this helps reduce the subject being out of focus due to shallow DOF.

Shot my first NCAA football game last year, just set my camera to AI servo and used the center focus point to track the subject. Got some great shots using that technique.

If so, you can just look through the viewfinder and adjust and see which is best for your vision. You should be able to tell pretty easily when things look good or not and the diopter doesn't have a large range of ticks.

Used centre point on my old camera because AF wasn't reliable. Been using a Sony A99 for over a year now and I've been using it on full auto (on lens that support AF) 95% of the time. It magically just seems to know exactly what to focus on, and it rarely misses focus (even less than using the centre point on my old camera).

On the rare occasions that I need to shoot through branches or whatnot, I just press the AF/MF toggle button on the back, to switch to manual focus mode, using focus peaking and focus magnify to get my focus spot-on.

Focusing and recomposing isn't an issue, and I have a focus lock button on the barrel of my lens. Unlike a Canon or Nikon, there's no need for a back button focus. It's just so damn easy to use - I can focus on other things like composition, posing, and technical aspects of lighting.

Other features I haven't played with enough yet (because I haven't really done any sports/action photography) is object tracking, and focus range limiting (e.g. track subject that's between 5-6 metres away only).

edit - oh yeah, for portraits, the camera automatically detects faces and eyeballs, and focuses ultra sharp by itself, without me needing to do anything special.

Just to give a different info in this thread about focus. I've used most techniques here...

I hold old nikkor glass I still use in video and sometimes photo. I use 5d's with magic lantern. There's an option called trap focus which essentially triggers the shot by detecting focus. It's quirky but works great. I shoot with my feet or with my long nikkor focus wheel. Just make sure you set high speeds if using focus wheel. It's quite fun.

I have a Canon 30D with a very handy "joystick", so I tend to choose autofocus points on the fly. If it's something static at close or medium range, I will still take a gazillion pics, because autofocus is kind of like rolling dice.